4.5 mo ebf but mainly feeding at night...exhausted and frustrated mum!

[BlueC2]

DD has just turned 20 weeks And over the past couple of weeks has been taking less and less milk during the day and is now waking every 1.5-2 hours at night and won't settle without a feed! I have 2.5 yo DS who I hve breastfed successfully and didn't have this issue with him as he was happy in a routine. DD likes to do her own thing and not have a routine and I am happy to demand feed but am just getting worn down by these night wakings and feeds. She is in a cot in her own room as there's no space for. Cot in ours. I've checked that she's warm enough etc. during the day she will cut as though she's hungry, latch on but then back arch and pull off and only suck for a few seconds, occasionally a couple of minutes but definitely not anywhere near a full feed. Weight wise she is doing fine and following 50th centile so I'm not worried about that...she seems to be getting the right amount of food/24hr period, just at night rather than during the day!! Anyone else had this or got any advice??

[carolinementzer]

My DD was a night time snacker - would wake up 7 x a night for a feed - exhausting so I know what you mean. We had to go cold turkey on the night feeds, then she ate really well in the day and slept much better at night. I was ebf-ing so my husband went into her as she wouldn't settle with me without a nipple in her mouth. She was a bit older though - so you may want to wait til she's eating solids. You may want to try a few tricks to get her to settle in the night without feeding - we love the ' sleep inducing' acupressure point at helping baby nod off quickly - here's the link to my blog post on it if you're interested. mydaughterwontsleep.com/2013/12/27/the-sleep-inducing-power-of-acupressure/
Good luck and best wishes

[Innocuoususername]

It's very common behaviour at this age OP, suddenly the world is so exciting and interesting to them that they don't want to feed in the day! Have a Google for "reverse cycling".

When both of mine started doing this I tried as much as possible to do daytime feeds in really quiet, boring places. It does curtail your activities for a bit but the idea is to get as many calories into them during the day and reset their body clocks.

[BlueC2]

Thanks ladies! I've been trying the quiet boring places for daytime feeds but difficult with a toddler roaming about and insisting on watching CBeebies while I'm feeding! Will have a look at reverse cycling too though.